The invention relates to the field of phototypesetting and comprises an apparatus particularly designed for the protection and storage of fonts and width cards as well as most other supplies and materials useful in phototypesetting.
Among the more important items used in phototypesetting and photoprinting are the fonts and width cards which define the style of print and the spacing and arrangement of letters and numbers.
Fonts are elongated, film-like sheets of plastic which contain a complete and compatible set of letters, numbers and punctuation marks usable as a composite type style in printing. Typically, these very fragile and expensive sheets are 3 to 4 inches wide and between two and three feet in length, with a generally blackened surface having transparent letters thereon which permit a light source to pass through the transparent letters of the font to activate photosensitized paper during the printing process. These thin, plastic fonts are easily damaged by excessive dust or abrasive contact of any kind. Accordingly, printers and typesetters exercise continual caution to avoid any scratching of or contact with the delicate font surfaces and endeavor to keep the fonts clean.
Up to now fonts have been stored with only a thin plastic package or sheath surrounding the fonts. No special storage facilities have been available, and accordingly they have often been stored in ordinary drawers or boxes and frequently become scratched and abraded during storage and sorting. Alternatively some printers keep the fonts in close proximity to the photoprinting equipment where the fonts rapidly become dirty or abraded, in which case the resulting short use life is accepted as a business expense. Fonts are frequently changed during the printing operation as different styles of print are utilized. Accordingly they must be readily available to the typesetter with a minimum of searching and unpacking, yet it is certainly desirable to prolong their use lives by storing them in a manner which will protect them from scratching, marring, dust accumulation, bending or other deformation. It has been found most desirable that they be stored in a generally vertical plane flushly against a protective supporting surface. Despite the fragility of the font and the substantial cost of its replacement, there is no known product on the market specifically designed for its protection and storage.
A width card is a generally rectangular, box-like, plastic module containing electronic circuitry for use in conjunction with the fonts. For each font there is a particular matched width card to be used in conjunction with the font to define the spacing and arrangement of letters and numbers. When a particular font is selected, a matching width card is also required to instruct the printing device as to the spacing between letters and symbols contained on the font. Accordingly, the fonts and width cards are used in close association and should be stored in an organized manner in close proximity to one another so as to be readily and easily available to a printer. It is desirable that some mode of indexing be used so that the particular width card needed for a particular font may be easily and unmistakably selected. There are no known products available specifically for storage of width cards or for the storage and protection of both font and width cards in an orderly and systematic arrangement. Because of this unavailability, a printer often must sort through a collection of randomly arranged fonts and width cards to find the desired combination, thus wasting valuable time, producing additional handling of unneeded fonts, and increasing the risk of damage to the poorly stored fonts.